My family has deep emotional ties to the gyoza. My sister Mayumi loved gyoza when she was a teenager. While her schoolmates put little Hello Kitty dolls and such on their school bags, she made a felt gyoza dumpling and hung that from the handle of her bag. I didn't go that far, but I've always loved this little meat-and-vegetable filled dumpling.

Gyoza originated in China, but as with many other things it's gotten assimilated into everyday Japanese cooking. It is closely related to shumai and wonton. The filling is usually pork based, with cabbage, green onion, garlic or garlic chives, and ginger, though there are variations. I've even had gyoza filled with lettuce and tuna, and it was pretty good. In Japan we usually use thin, ready-made gyoza skins rather than handmade ones, because a thin skin is considered to be desirable. Besides, making all those little dumplings is quite a job so not having to make the skins too saves some time. You can get the skins from Japanese, Korean or Chinese food stores. Try to get ones that are a bit big in diameter, especially if you are a beginner, since it does take a bit of experience to form the dumplings.

Gyoza dumplings can be boiled or deep-fried, but the usual way is to steam-fry them so that they are crispy on the bottom and smooth and slippery on the top. This makes for a wonderful texture. To achieve this please read through the cooking directions; it can be a bit tricky, and these dumpling can stick hard to the frying pan if not done right.

Japanese-style gyoza dumplings

This makes 72 dumplings (3 packs of 24-piece gyoza skins worth). I like to make a lot at one time and freeze batches.

250g / about 8 oz. ground pork (ground veal can also work well)

3 bunches of green onions

6-8 cabbage leaves

1 thumb-size piece of ginger

2 garlic cloves

2 Tbs. soy sauce

1 Tbs. dark sesame oil

4 packs of gyoza skins (24 skins in each pack)

Peanut oil for frying

Blanch the cabbage leaves until wilted in boiling water. Drain, let cool then squeeze hard to get out as much moisture as possible.
Finely chop the cabbage and the green onions. Grate the ginger and garlic cloves. Mix all the ingredients except for the gyoza skins and oil for frying in a bowl thoroughly. Let marinate for about and hour if possible.

Make your dumpling assembly station ready: you'll need a little cup of water, a large platter, the gyoza skins, the filling and a teaspoon. Keep the skins under a damp cloth or in the plastic pack they come in to keep them from drying out.

Put a skin on your palm and moisten half of the edge with water. Put a teaspoonful of filling in the middle--don't overfill them or you'll have trouble closing them up. Fold over in half and pinch firmly in the middle. Now, fold over the skin on the side facing you, from both sides, pinching firmly as you go. Your aim is to create a dumpling that is flat on one side and plump on the other. Note: if the filling is a bit watery and dribbling out of the dumpling, mix in a little cornstarch.

To steam-fry the dumplings, heat up a frying pan with a little peanut or other vegetable oil in it. A non-stick pan is very good for this. Put the dumplings flat side down into the pan, slightly overlapping. Cook over high heat for a couple of minutes untl the bottoms have started to crisp up. Lower the heat to low.

Now, get a cup with about 1/2 cup of water, and a lid for the frying pan. Hold the water in one hand and the lid in the other, and rapidly pour the water into the pan and immediately put the lid on. Let the dumplings cook on low for about 10 minutes, until the tops looks sort of transparent and puffy (when you open the pan the dumplings will rapidly un-puff.) When the water is almost all gone, turn the heat up to high to evaporate the rest and really crisp up the bottoms. Pry the dumplings carefully off the pan with a spatula and serve crispy side up on a plate.

To eat, dip the dumplings into a soy sauce and vinegar mixture or soy sauce and a few drops of hot chili oil called Ra-yu. Plain soy sauce will work too, or even soy sauce with some Tabasco in it.

The traditional accompaniment for gyoza is shredded raw cabbage, but I prefer to serve a plain green salad with it. And rice, of course.

If you prefer to boil the gyoza, simply drop into boiling water and cook for a few minutes. Boiled gyoza seems to go better with a soy sauce and vinegar dipping sauce.

Tip: to freeze extra gyoza, put them on a tray (metal is best) in a single layer; once frozen you can put them in a freezer bag or plastic container. This way they are not stuck together, and you can take out just as many as you want.

You can coat the gyoza in katakuriko or corn starch before frying them to get an even more crunchy/crispy bottom. If you do so, you need to slowly pour the water in to avoid washing away the katakuriko.

I love qyoza as well, especially as a side dish with udon. Rather than soy sauce, I prefer an umeboshi mix:

Chop two umeboshi finely (or just get a jar of umeboshi paste). Mix with two teaspoons soy sauce and two teaspoons rice vinegar (apple cider vinegar works fine too). It should be a runny, red, slightly lumpy, paste; just dip/scoop the qyoza in it.

Hi Maki, I stumbled across your blog recently and like it especially the Japanese food recipes you posted. And I must admit I love Japanese food.

Thanks for posting the gyoza recipe. Reminded me of my stay in Japan and my great love for Jap food. Haven't tried making gyoza but I wanna try it using your recipe. Thanks and please keep posting more Jap recipes. :-)

Elna - London, England
I just read your very old response to a gyoza recipe. I don't know if you realize but using the word Jap for Japanese is extremely offensive. In the same way calling someone the N word. I am hoping you were unaware but do not want you to use such words in a public forum as you might get some angry responses.

Thank you so much for your step by step guide to making gyoza. I will have to try it sometime! It is nice to find other gyoza lovers who are passionate about this yummy treat! I posted your blog in my blog as a reference in how to make these! Ja ne!

Great recipe, the gyoza turned out great, and I had a great time making them. I think it would be fair to call it my first true success in japanese cooking, everything else I've made turned out horrendous. Do you freeze them uncooked? I made the mistake of using a vacuum sealer, which compressed them and turned my gyoza into a giant gyoza steak, which I still ate incidentally.

Hello the Gyoza I see looks amazing, I was stationed in Japan and I came to love Gyoza, however now I am staioned in Germany and can not seem to find Gyoza wrappers so does anyone know where I can order the wrappers from? I would truly apprecitate the information, I am craving Gyoza...

Hollie, depending on where you are stationed, chances are there is a Japanese food store near you. I know that there are ones in Duesseldorf and Frankfurt. You may want to ask at a Japanese restaurant where they get their stuff!

My husband and I have been trying to perfect homemade dumplings for a few years now. We've done well so far but i have two problems; the pork, always a little dry and bland, and the sauce, just can't get it to taste like what we are served at the Chinese restaurants. I've let the pork marinate for a few hours to let the seasonings really sink in but to no avail.
I tried again a few weeks ago with your recipie but I didn't have any cabbage so I just left it out.. I've got some now and am planning to make dumplings for my husband's bento sometime this week. I'll try it with cabbage this time.

Any suggestions? Perhaps I should shorten the cooking time to make the meat more moist? The sauce can wait but the pork being dry.. that's blaspheme! :p

The one thing that will prevent your pork from tasting dry is to use a fairly fatty part of pork. Lean ground pork just won't do it for dumplings. There's no need to marinate it for a long time, and the salt in the soy sauce will actually draw out the moisture from the meat if you let it sit too long. Adding a good portion of chopped up vegetables will add moistness too.

I made gyoza yesterday, and I should have come here first! My meat (ground chicken) turned out far too dry for my taste, and I had let my wrappers sit for too long. I won't give up, though; like your sister I love gyoza far too much not to figure out the secret.

Got a question, is there a way to make these with out the cabbage? Like make a meat dumpling without the cabbage, husband and brother are strictly carnivores and can't stand when I make these with cabbage.

Thanks for this! What is especially valuable here is the cooking technique you've presented; I've followed other recipes exactly and I never seemed to get that nice crispy bottom on the dumpling until now.

You've mentioned in various places how high gyoza are in calories, some 100 per gyoza. What is it that makes the calories so high? Is it the carbs in the wrapper? The cut of meat? The oil? All of it together?

Or does this apply more to pre-made gyoza than to homemade, boiled gyoza? I've had some store-bought gyoza that are pretty greasy inside, but when I'm folding my own, I still can't understand what gives them this designation.

It's all of the above as you guessed - the wrapper (white flour), the filling (fatty ground pork), and the cooking process (pan-fried then steamed in the pan). If you boil them you can subtract about 30-40 calories per dumpling. Also you can try increasing the amount of vegetable in the filling in relation to the meat.

Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add
to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter
updates. I've been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this. Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.

Thanks for the recipe, I absolutely love gyoza.
One thing I was wondering though, I've eaten them a couple of times with some sort of crusty bit connecting the gyoza. I think they ad something more than just the water to steam them? Do you know anything about this?

The crusty bit is called hane (pronounced ha-NEH) and means 'wings'. They're made by adding a little potato starch (katakuriko) or cornstarch or flour, or a combination of starch + flour dissolved in water instead of plain water to the pan. When the water evaporates the starch/flour form the crusty connecting bits.

I've made this recipe at least 5 times now, and it always a hit! :) I just made it again for lunch today, and the hubby literally inhaled them in 5 mins! Seems like I never make enough... Thanks for the great recipe :)

What about nira as one of the ingredients for gyoza. It is hard to find in the US but isn't that one of the "must have" ingredients for the true flavor of gyoza? Is the green onion enough of a substitute for the garlic chive known as nira?

It has been a long time since your comment, but I hope you see this! I have been making vegetarian gyoza for a few years now. They have a much lighter texture than pork gyoza, but they are still delicious!

Here is the source recipe:
pickycook(dot)com(slash)appetizersandsnacks(slash)vegetablegyoza(dot)aspx

My modifications change some fresh spices for dried (though I should go back to fresh ginger), increase it to make 100 gyoza at once, freeze and defrost the tofu, and THOROUGHLY dry and crumble the tofu instead of cubing it, which improves the texture and lets it soak up the seasonings much better.

If anyone is vegan and wants to try this, you can probably use one of your fake egg substitutes for the real egg and double-check that any component sauces are vegan.

If you like my modified version, please print it out, as I have been editing it every time I change the way I make gyoza (so the contents of that webpage on Allrecipes will change).

Got my first taste of Gyoza 5 yrs ago and fell in love. The problem was finding them ready made in stores. Now they are available but I made some homemade ones this summer. Hubby has only started eating them this summer but he prefers the homemade ones. The problem is he doesn't know when to stop making and eating them if we have the ingredients in the house lol.

I made these tonight, and they were amazing! I've wanted to try and make gyoza at home for several years now, and finally got around to it- I'm really glad I did! Thank you for the awesome recipe and step by step instructions (I'm kind of a newbie at making food from the East), it was very easy to understand and follow.
Thank you again!

These sound deeelicious :) I am going to try to work out a veggie version asap (tofu, mushroom, cabbage, pak choi maybe?) and make a big batch but I was wondering about cooking them back from frozen? If you freeze a bunch is it best to defrost them before cooking, or just throw them in the pan frozen..? Thanks for your help, and for sharing this great recipe!

If you want to taste some of the best Gyoza in the world, you need to travel to Sendai in Touhoku. Nearby the Tohoku University International House and Tohoku Fukushi University. In Sanjo Machin http://goo.gl/maps/ALh4c There is a speciality store called The Gyoza. I have been around the globe to taste dumplings and this man serves the most delicious gyoza I have ever tasted.

Just made some of these as my special birthday dinner, only I used some firm tofu instead of pork, and added some extra shredded vegetables (packaged broccoli slaw, actually) to the cabbage. They were totally awesome! Thanks for the help! :)

My family has deep emotional ties to the gyoza. My sister Mayumi loved gyoza when she was a teenager. While her schoolmates put little Hello Kitty dolls and such on their school bags, she made a felt gyoza dumpling and hung that from the handle of her bag. I didn't go that far, but I've always loved this little meat-and-vegetable filled dumpling.

Gyoza originated in China, but as with many other things it's gotten assimilated into everyday Japanese cooking. It is closely related to shumai and wonton. The filling is usually pork based, with cabbage, green onion, garlic or garlic chives, and ginger, though there are variations. I've even had gyoza filled with lettuce and tuna, and it was pretty good. In Japan we usually use thin, ready-made gyoza skins rather than handmade ones, because a thin skin is considered to be desirable. Besides, making all those little dumplings is quite a job so not having to make the skins too saves some time. You can get the skins from Japanese, Korean or Chinese food stores. Try to get ones that are a bit big in diameter, especially if you are a beginner, since it does take a bit of experience to form the dumplings.

Gyoza dumplings can be boiled or deep-fried, but the usual way is to steam-fry them so that they are crispy on the bottom and smooth and slippery on the top. This makes for a wonderful texture. To achieve this please read through the cooking directions; it can be a bit tricky, and these dumpling can stick hard to the frying pan if not done right. Japanese-style gyoza dumplings

This makes 72 dumplings (3 packs of 24-piece gyoza skins worth). I like to make a lot at one time and freeze batches.

250g / about 8 oz. ground pork (ground veal can also work well)

3 bunches of green onions

6-8 cabbage leaves

1 thumb-size piece of ginger

2 garlic cloves

2 Tbs. soy sauce

1 Tbs. dark sesame oil

4 packs of gyoza skins (24 skins in each pack)

Peanut oil for frying

Blanch the cabbage leaves until wilted in boiling water. Drain, let cool then squeeze hard to get out as much moisture as possible.
Finely chop the cabbage and the green onions. Grate the ginger and garlic cloves. Mix all the ingredients except for the gyoza skins and oil for frying in a bowl thoroughly. Let marinate for about and hour if possible.

Make your dumpling assembly station ready: you'll need a little cup of water, a large platter, the gyoza skins, the filling and a teaspoon. Keep the skins under a damp cloth or in the plastic pack they come in to keep them from drying out.

Put a skin on your palm and moisten half of the edge with water. Put a teaspoonful of filling in the middle--don't overfill them or you'll have trouble closing them up. Fold over in half and pinch firmly in the middle. Now, fold over the skin on the side facing you, from both sides, pinching firmly as you go. Your aim is to create a dumpling that is flat on one side and plump on the other. Note: if the filling is a bit watery and dribbling out of the dumpling, mix in a little cornstarch.

To steam-fry the dumplings, heat up a frying pan with a little peanut or other vegetable oil in it. A non-stick pan is very good for this. Put the dumplings flat side down into the pan, slightly overlapping. Cook over high heat for a couple of minutes untl the bottoms have started to crisp up. Lower the heat to low.

Now, get a cup with about 1/2 cup of water, and a lid for the frying pan. Hold the water in one hand and the lid in the other, and rapidly pour the water into the pan and immediately put the lid on. Let the dumplings cook on low for about 10 minutes, until the tops looks sort of transparent and puffy (when you open the pan the dumplings will rapidly un-puff.) When the water is almost all gone, turn the heat up to high to evaporate the rest and really crisp up the bottoms. Pry the dumplings carefully off the pan with a spatula and serve crispy side up on a plate.

To eat, dip the dumplings into a soy sauce and vinegar mixture or soy sauce and a few drops of hot chili oil called Ra-yu. Plain soy sauce will work too, or even soy sauce with some Tabasco in it.

The traditional accompaniment for gyoza is shredded raw cabbage, but I prefer to serve a plain green salad with it. And rice, of course.

If you prefer to boil the gyoza, simply drop into boiling water and cook for a few minutes. Boiled gyoza seems to go better with a soy sauce and vinegar dipping sauce.

Tip: to freeze extra gyoza, put them on a tray (metal is best) in a single layer; once frozen you can put them in a freezer bag or plastic container. This way they are not stuck together, and you can take out just as many as you want.[/quote]

Hi, I've tried both ways and found the filling got very dry if cooked before freezing, so I always freeze it raw now. I also found if I defrosted it before cooking the wrappers got very sticky and sometimes fell apart, it was difficult to handle (I think the wrappers might absorb some of the moisture in the filling - the same thing happens if I make too many and leave some in the fridge overnight to cook the next day), I got much better results cooking it straight from frozen, so I would recommend cooking it either from freshly made, or frozen. :-)